The starting gun for the 2013 gardening season was officially fired yesterday as garden centres across the UK launched their Garden Re-Leaf Day activities, many of which will extend over the week-end and even into next week.

The aim of the fun event is to encourage footfall with an inspiring string of activities – including a national quiz featuring TV and Radio gardening presenters, and a ‘Find the Plot’ competition sponsored by the HTA - and raise funds for the industry's Greenfingers charity.

Garden Re-Leaf’s co-founder, Boyd Douglas-Davies, said the response to the second Garden Re-Leaf Day had been “fantastic”.

"The response to the 2nd Garden Re-Leaf Day has been fantastic. The industry has embraced the event and firmly established it on the gardening calendar. Yet again, the national media has shown great interest in our interest and widely reported the events taking place across the country."

"To have the support of Stephen Fry once again has been great"

"The additional support provided by the trade associations this year has been significant and it has helped to make the day bigger and better."

The first round-up of some of the day’s activities follows in this issue of GTN Xtra.

Send us your photios and stories from Garden ReLeaf Day 2013 and we'll publish another GTN XTra Garden ReLeaf special issue early next week.  trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk